The comments came at a roundtable discussion at Oregon Health & Science University on the importance of scientific analysis around gun violence. There is currently a ban on the Centers for Disease and Prevention conducting comprehensive research on gun violence.
Multnomah County Health Officer Dr. Paul Lewis was at the table, along with District Attorney Rod Underhill and County STRYVE (Striving to Reduce Youth Violence Everywhere) specialist Vanessa Micale.
Leading the event was U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, whose goal was to hear from what he called “health and advocate all-stars” on the topic in order to learn about how to make legislative change at a federal level.
The lack of public, concrete data limits progress around gun-related violence, said Wyden.
He called the policy an “anti-research, anti-knowledge federal policy that defies common sense.”
Health officials expressed the importance of having access to research and urged Wyden to bring their comments forward to members of Congress.
Among those present at the conference were Robbie Parker, whose six-year-old daughter, Emilie was shot to death at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn. in 2012, and Robert Yuille, whose wife, Cindy Yuille, was murdered in the 2012 shooting at Clackamas Town Center while Christmas shopping.
Parker and Yuille --voices trembling with emotion-- opened the discussion with statements about what gun violence has meant to them.
“My life and my family’s life has been affected by this topic,” said Parker. “Robert and I don’t want anybody else to be a part of the fraternity that we’re a part of. It’s a really crappy initiation process to get into this group.”
The CDC’s “ban” on concrete research around gun violence began in 1997 when what’s known as the Dickey Amendment outlawed the CDC from sponsoring any research that could “advocate or promote gun control.”
While the CDC is involved with the surveillance of firearm fatalities, it has funded no extensive studies aimed at the public health effects of gun violence in the United States since 2001.
As a result, said Parker, local organizations have to rely on oftentimes biased data garnered from the private sector.
“Biased research is just basically an opinion,” said Parker. “Opinion doesn’t change anything. That’s why we need honest, reliable data.”
Having this kind of data is critical at a time when gun violence is becoming more and more prevalent at both the national and local level.
“Every year in Multnomah County alone we can fill two Tri-Met buses with victims of fatal gun violence,” said Paul Lewis, Multnomah County’s Public Health Officer.
Lewis said that while data is essential, a focus on prevention is also key to decreasing gun violence fatalities.
“Prevention is based on understanding,” he said. And understanding “is based on science.”
Multnomah County STRYVE employee Vanessa Micale--who told the group that homicide and firearms are the second leading cause of death for youth aged 15-24, also underscored the importance of prevention efforts coupled with data collection.
“As public health, we have the duty to work as far upstream as we can and the data is going to assist us to do that work,” she said.
Wyden pledged that he will take the information he gained back to congress, where he hopes a change in legislation around the CDC’s stance is in the near future.
“I want this ban lifted,” he said. “I’m going to do everything I can to take this information so that gun violence will be treated like the four-alarm public health challenge that it is.”
Added Parker as the conference came to a close: “We don't want the victims of gun violence to have died in vain.”
Photo gallery contains a total of 13 images.
